My Optiplex SFF states pcie mini half card for wifi is that better than aftermarket adapters?

[alphacoyle]

When looking at Dell specs for this optiplex sff it states pcie mini half card dw1530 which would be paired with a pciex1 adapter and antennas. My question is if that dw1530/1540 card will be better or worse than current all in one adapter types? I purchased a tplink n150 for the meantime (I have 768 kbps DSL.) It worked plug and play on 64 bit windows 10 Pro, but I wonder if the setup Dell recommends is better. So basically is a half card setup better or worse than a basic wifi adapter?
And here's the video I watched stating the half cards are better:
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svWh1QX5T_k"][/video]

 

[atljsf]

the mini peci e card is meant to be used with a laptop or a mini itx mainboard, for space restrictions

other than that, you can use them wherever you want with the adapter or without it when inserted in the mini pci e slot on the mainboard

i have many wifi cards, pci, usb, nano usb, pci express, mini pci e and m.2

some cards are not that great, others are very good, i haven't yet found one that is better than the other in terms of signal, especially when you can change the small 2dbi antennas and put some bigger ones in the models that allows it, 5 or 7 dbi are great, more stable signal and harder to block

if your mainboard has a mini pci e slot a intel 7260 would be great, adds bluetooth to the machine

if the one you bought is working well, that one is good too

one good reason to use that adapter is the antenna array it has, when you buy a pc and you don't have that antenna array, you have to buy the antennas and see how you can set them, or get a expansion slot plate and drill it to install the antennas, there are other tricks, i placed mine in the holes for a 240mm radiator in the back of the case with a intel 3160, it works well with two 2dbi antennas, will get bigger ones later

 

[alphacoyle]

I went with the 1540 and adapter; works well, especially as I've recently moved up to 30mb internet and the 5g option was needed; my laptop only has 2g and gets half the speed.